Author Salman Rushdie24:42

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Salman Rushdie has been an international figure for a quarter of a century now, since the 1981 publication of his acclaimed "Midnight's Children." He's been a fixture on bookshelves, on Op-Ed pages around the world, and on podiums speaking up, essentially, for freedom.

Rushdie became a household name in 1989 when Iran's Ayotollah Khomeini issued a fatwa, saying it was the duty of Muslims to kill Rushdie for blasphemy against Islam. But Rushdie is still here, critiquing, mocking, and illuminating the lives and lies of both the West and the Islamic world.

His new novel, "Shalimar the Clown," is a love song and a rage over the destruction of the paradise of his youth, Kashmir. Rushdie takes on Islam, when it forgets to be tolerant, America, when its ideals are betrayed by its actions, and most of all, Muslims and Hindus, governments and guerillas who destroyed an oasis of tolerance.